Your Right to Know

It’s been just over a month since Gov. John Kasich’s office gave up the JobsOhio records he had
wanted to keep secret and that Auditor Dave Yost wanted to audit.

But don’t expect results for at least another month or two — and even that time frame is
volatile because the nonprofit economic development agency created by Kasich has never been subject
to a state audit, said Yost spokeswoman Carrie Bartunek.

While JobsOhio met Yost’s March 19 deadline to turn over its material, the agency submitted even
more about a week later.

The leading groups favoring and opposing abortion rights on the same side — not once but twice
in the same week?

First it was agreement on Kasich’s proposed Medicaid expansion — although House Republicans
marked the occasion by slicing it from the state budget. Then it was a Senate bill, pending in
committee, that would open access to adoption records.

A new era?

Not judging by the social-media back-and-forth over another budget proposal, de-funding Planned
Parenthood.

“Let’s play count the lies” NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio tweeted as the head of Right to Life began his
testimony last week.

Groups under the “pro life” label tweeted about the same time: “How refreshing to hear truths
versus lies and hypocrisy” from the abortion-rights group.

At first, it sounded like just another one of those goofy bills the legislature often brings up,
such as designating the official state invertebrate or naming the last 3.7 miles of Ohio roadway
that hasn’t already been named for someone — especially when it turned out the bill sponsor’s son
would be testifying for dad’s legislation.

This one was titled Hernia Week, officially designating the week including July 17 as “
Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Week.”

Turns out CDHs affect 1 in every 2,500 births and the child’s chances of survival are 50 to 75
percent, a House committee learned last week from Dr. Edward Shepherd, medical director of the
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The developing child’s diaphragm
doesn’t completely close, allowing the intestines to push into the chest cavity, shoving the heart
to one side and limiting development of the lungs.

Scott Hayes, son of Rep. Bill Hayes, R-Granville, movingly told about the struggles of his
daughter Emily, purple and missing a lung when she was born, who spent the first six weeks of her
life in a hospital battling a CDH. She is now a healthy 14-year-old.

Why July 17? It’s Emily’s birthday.

Summer is coming, the time for some government officials to hire a family member for a seasonal
job.

Except that it’s illegal — a fourth-degree felony, in fact.

Ohio ethics investigators say they’ve dealt with a surprising number of nepotism cases in recent
years, especially in local governments. So the state ethics commission sent out a bulletin to
public officials reminding them of the law.